


let me tell you a story (don't know why I have to tell it but I know what it means)

by xerampelinae



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: s02e08 The Blade of Marmora, discussions of racism, references to japanese interment camps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 18:17:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: “I’m not asking you to forget what Zarkon did to your people, Princess. But I am asking for respect for someone who is risking his life fighting this war.”“It’s not that easy,” Allura says.“It never is,” Shiro says.-Shiro and Allura have a conversation after the revelations of The Blade of Marmora.





	let me tell you a story (don't know why I have to tell it but I know what it means)

“Do you have a moment, Allura?” Shiro says, but there’s something about his tone that indicates it’s not actually a question.

“Of course,” Allura says, straightening. They’re alone in the Command Center, Paladins dispersed and Coran running through his daily routine. For a moment Allura wonders if Shiro had planned or staged that, or if it had been an incidental isolation, then dismisses the thought as irrelevant. It is what it is.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about our guests,” Shiro says.

Allura’s eyes sweep out in an automatic sort of response, body shifting almost imperceptibly into a ready stance. “Fine,” Allura says. “They’ve given us information and support that will be very helpful fighting Zarkon.”

Shiro inclines his head, but eyes stay firmly on Allura. Observing. It prickles at Allura in a way that she normally doesn’t notice. She’s been accustomed, in a way, to a certain degree of attention as a member of a spacefaring royal family; this is a different kind of attention. “You’re much more cordial with Kolivan and his cohort than you are with Keith.”

“That’s--” Allura hisses, stops when Shiro raises a hand.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Shiro says with a deliberate evenness. “You can just listen.” _Don’t speak_ is unspoken. Allura swallows and nods.

“Back on Earth, I have dual citizenship in the United States and Japan. The Garrison, where we all trained, is State-side, not that aren’t sister programs on different continents.”

Allura nods. The details seem straight-forward enough.

“I don’t know about Altea and all the planets you visited before, but on Earth, within the span of two centuries, there were three conflicts so big we could only call them _world wars_. We stopped short of total destruction and nuclear winter, but it wasn’t far off. We’re actually only decades out of the last one.

“Human memory isn’t so terribly short,” Shiro says, sighing wryly. “I have no idea how long Altean lifespans are, but the second war--it is still within living memory, if only barely. Those that follow still mourn those lost to those times.”

“Why are you telling this?” Allura says, more angry--more frustrated?--than probably is justified for a random terrestrial anecdote of conflict.

“Because the U.S. and Japan were on opposite sides of the war,” Shiro says, eyes and voice steady. “After the U.S.entered the war, almost all the Japanese families were sent away to the prison camps. They called them internment camps, but they knew what it was.”

Shiro laughs humorlessly, a foreign and disquieting sound. “It’s a point of contention still. Not everyone will admit what happened. 

“Executive Order 9066. Four years. Hundreds of thousands of people. Lives lived under gunpoint. It didn’t really matter how long their families had been in the States, they weren’t citizens. They were a risk, unless they swore allegiance with exclusion of ties to the home country and paid it out in blood, and even still.”

“Why are you telling me about this?” Allura breathes.

“Because every war ends, one way or another,” Shiro says. “And generations down, on both sides of the ocean, we remember. Not just soldiers but civilians. Children as well. We remember even when those who were there pass on. We must.

“I’m not asking you to forget what Zarkon did to your people, Princess. But I am asking for respect for someone who is risking his life fighting this war.”

“It’s not that easy,” Allura says.

“It never is,” Shiro says.

“He’s Galra,” Allura whispers, eyes welling with tears.

“He’s the same person he always was,” Shiro says. “Or is it the mixed blood that bothers you? You cannot take him down to his component parts and make him into something that is wholly human or wholly Galra.

“Keith has always been someone I trust with my life. I stand by that and by him.”

Allura is quiet. She cannot trust her voice or the tears not to fall.

For a moment, Shiro’s lips curl back unhappily before flattening deliberately. “The war will not last forever,” Shiro repeats. “How will you treat the innocents swept up in all this? For whose benefit is this?”

Shiro sighs and shifts his weight. “Food for thought,” he says. “Just think about it.”

Shiro leaves quietly and Allura is left alone with her thoughts.

-

“What about you, Keith?” Hunk asks. “Who sent you care packages, your parents?”

Hidden in circuitry and hands buried within, Allura stiffens.

“No one,” Keith says quietly, more easily than might be expected for the topic. “I didn’t have parents or siblings like the rest of you--I had Shiro.”

It’s a fast derailment of the topic, even without Keith’s quick exit. More so than Pidge’s confession: enrolling under an assumed name without her mother’s support in search of a truth that would lead back to the rest of her family, and therefore being in a self-imposed sort of isolation. Hunk couldn’t have known that Keith’s answer would be even less comforting than Pidge’s was. 

Allura closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing. She doesn’t untangle herself until long after the hall goes silent.

-

She can’t bring herself to reach out. Not until the chances are nearly spent, until Shiro and Keith are clasping arms and pulling one another close in a way that she can’t help watching even when she’s trying not to look. The kind of embrace where they know the odds are against them, where they can’t help but have some closeness and some sort of goodbye before they part. It’s intimate. Beyond the rest of the Paladins. It sets them apart.

Shiro looks at her as he passes without speaking. Then Allura is alone with Keith. She flies into his arms, greedy for some comfort like that which Shiro and Keith find in each other.

“My anger has blinded me for far too long,” Allura says. “I’m sorry I misjudged you. Please come back to us.”

“I will,” Keith says.

**Author's Note:**

> Title paraphrased from Fort Minor's "Kenji" which was particularly instrumental in the development of this fic, "Let me tell you a story in the form of a dream/I don't know why I have to tell it, but I know what it means."  
> I've been thinking about this fic for a while. I've tried to approach the topic respectfully but at the end of the day I am a mixed race American. Please let me know if I've miss-stepped.  
> Some facts that guided me: my mother, who was born after WW2, was not considered a US citizen despite being born here because she's Asian. Hawaii had a significant Japanese population; I had a teacher in high school who said that there were too many people to put in internment camps, as they were a major part of the work force. My uncle, who grew up there, stated otherwise and he's the one I believe.  
> In some ways I feel like Allura's progress in accepting Keith stagnated at this point. I also hate it when Allura's apology to Keith is described as her forgiving him. For what, the sin of existing as something other than you thought him to be? Doesn't your fucking castle scan everyone??


End file.
